MHYP News

Colorado's non-farm payroll jobs rose 2.2 percent in February from a year earlier, with only five states scoring a higher one-year job growth rate, according to U.S. Labor Department data released Tuesday.

The state added 48,200 payroll positions between February 2011 and February 2012, reaching a total of 2,261,600, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The only states to top Colorado's job growth rate over the year were North Dakota (up 6.9 percent), which has seen a surge in oil and gas operations, followed by Oklahoma (up 2.9 percent), Texas (up 2.6 percent), Utah and Louisiana (both up 2.5 percent), the BLS data show. And Kentucky and the District of Columbia both tied Colorado's 2.2 percent job growth rate.